Marseille

description of/satisfaction with:
what is independent? anti-capitalist.
the independent scene in marseille is not large. there are very few places to play. being the second largest city in france there are many bands, but the scene is very small.
there is a small place for distribution. the scene is small, but it’s growing.

scene development/maintenance:l’embobineuse is a small venue, around for five years. they say it is hard to find a public. currently they are operating with difficulty. often there isn’t enough money to pay the artists. this is especially a problem for touring bands. they try to barter or make exchanges with local bands because there isn’t enough money to pay them. they decided to make a collective network in marseille including about ten places. the idea is to use the collective to ask for city support in order to buy equipment, and deal with police and neighbor problems. no specific parameters for involvement have been decided yet, but they are currently collecting information about each place’s audience and impact.
there is less and less public financing available. it’s hard to fight quasi-independent places like la friche.
it is hard to get audiences to understand why they should pay.
transparency is important, both at the door, and from the musicians.
musicians should choose where they play based on how fair the venue is to the audience, the musicians and their workers.
venues need to make clear both their internal and external processes.
improving the scene is a question of changing social attitudes about consumption, and the question of developing identity through music.

the state and the scene:
france still has funding for musicians to be paid if they make fifty concerts per year.
france doesn’t have music education in schools.
if you play/produce more than six events per year, you are considered a professional musician/venue by the state. once declared professional, you have to get a license. one venue got around the law by applying for a new license every year.